Teacher's Perceptions and Practices Regarding Classroom Interaction in Improving Speaking Skills

Abstract

Teaching is mostly a result of a teacher's beliefs (Chowdhury & Rashid, 2014). What teachers do inside the classroom is a result of their pedagogical perspectives, whether they are conscious of their viewpoint or not (Chowdhury & Rashid, 2014). Therefore, exploring the various pedagogical beliefs and classroom practices may help teachers to be more aware of their applications and teaching style inside the classroom. This study aims to investigate the perceptions and practices of a Saudi English language teacher regarding classroom interaction to improve speaking skills in fourth level students at King Khalid University in Saudi Arabia. It also aims to fill the gap between beliefs and practices by finding out the reasons why there are any discrepancies between her beliefs and practices. The data was collected through interview and classroom observation. The findings found that EFL teachers had a variety of complicated ideas that are similar to classroom interaction principles and also mostly similar to her practices. In addition, the results also revealed the factors that might influence any disagreement among beliefs and practices as educational context (classroom size and time factor), the students’ problems (shyness, lack of confidence and the low level of English proficiency), and the participant (teacher-centred instruction and teacher’s management of teaching and learning activities).to the emotional aspects of language learning.